Staples is giving us one free ream of Staples paper this week. I always link to the main coupon page in case you need other items.
My story (meant to lure you into reading the entire post..heheheehehe). I’ve been accumulating a number of toner cartridges and a few ink cartridges over some time – enough to fill two kitchen bags. a lot. Waiting on Staples to go back to the $5 a cartridge, since I got pissed when they reduced it to $2. I mean, really? I would get the same value for both a puny ink cartridge as a big toner cartridge? Then price them accordingly!
But I digress. So I finally drag over both bags to Staples, only to learn that not only do they no longer have that $2 trade-in credit, NOW you get the credit only if you buy a cartridge $30+ (and it’s limit two, I believe)! This is not even Barbie math, folks. Were I to get the prior deal of $2 times the 10 limit, I’d still be paying almost $20 more than the HP cartridge I buy at ComboInk (Staples is $68.99 & ComboInk is $27.99). And ComboInk is still running their 15% off promotion, too. Their one year guarantee doesn’t hurt, either (although I’ve never had to use it)
Ended up bringing them to Best Buy where I didn’t get squat, but at least they’re being recycled…
I haven’t really found any of the store ink cartridge programs to be all that beneficial to me, because I buy my ink online and the knock offs on ebay actually have worked in my printer shockingly. I started taking mine to OfficeMax where they give you $2 per cart/toner up to 10 per month. The catch is, in order to get your credit, you have to have spent an equal amount on purchases. But it can be anything bought in the store or online, not necessarily ink, with a few exceptions: computers, eReaders, tablets, postage stamps, gift cards, etc. So it’s not as bad as Staples, I think.. but tbh, I hardly ever buy anything at OfficeMax so I’m still not too impressed.
A friend bought a whole bunch of years-expired ink cartridges on eBay -worked fine! Of course, for that to work, you have to have a very old printer so there’s a large supply of expired product! She was using Walgreen’s refills (do they even do that) and wondered why she always had gunk coming out and messing up pages. I love ComboInk and more I cannot say (phooey on those big box stores!)
I have a newer HP wireless printer (6600) that is about a year old and asked at Walgreens and Cartridge World about refilling and both told me they couldn’t refill mine, saying they were “too new.” I’ve bought black & colors on ebay and I’m pretty sure they’re just refilled carts and never had any problems. One time the yellow didn’t work but the seller mailed me a replacement within 3 days and that one worked, so I’m not complaining. $20 for 2 blacks and all the colors is far better than $50 for a set on walmart.com. Never tried ComboInk, but I see it talked about a lot in the coupon world.
Unless they cancelled their program after 4/1 they still give $2 credit for each cartridge (up to 10) per month. You do have to spend $30 on ink every 180 days to qualify.